


Evaluation

by moonsofceres



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Medical Themes, Psychological Themes, Somewhat, there's nothing healthy here bon apetit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-01 01:42:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonsofceres/pseuds/moonsofceres
Summary: His behaviour had been unpredictable, and he knew it. It was the only rational explanation for the sudden, mandatory medical examination this far out of his usual schedule.





	Evaluation

His behaviour had been unpredictable, and he knew it.  
  
  
It was the only rational explanation for the sudden, mandatory medical examination this far out of his usual schedule.  
  
  
As with most things in life, Gabriel Reyes was quick to comprehend the situation and just as fast to view it with disdain. It was a habit he had fallen deeper into in the months that followed the crisis.  
  
  
The sleek, impossibly buoyant puff of blonde ponytail across the table from him reflected the bright light in the small box of a white room. His lips curled into the makings of a snarl, a reaction he discarded as unrelated.  
  
  
"This is an interrogation."  
  
  
"It's an evaluation" Doctor Ziegler corrected him, a familiar chide in her voice. "Do you experience these paranoid thoughts very often?"  
  
  
He contained a laugh. Felt it bubble beneath his skin instead, like bile.  
  
  
"Do you honestly think it's appropriate for _you_ to evaluate me?" he asked, a challenge. Sitting back away from the table between them and into the fold out chair, hips sinking lower, shoulders wide and chest open as he reached into the pocket of his jacket.  
  
  
He exuded self-assurance. She ignored it, scratching at her papers with blue ink. Looking up only at the click of a lighter, her placid, professional demeanour breaking into clear disgust.  
  
  
"I am the head of Medical Science. It is quite appropriate that I assess someone of your rank, Commander."  
  
  
Gabriel sneered, the threat of a laugh materialising in nicotine and tar, smoke escaping his nostrils and mouth at the twisted reaction. The opportunity to remind him of her intellectual superiority had been predictably too good to pass up. He took a slow, steady drag from his cigarette, tossing the paper packet onto the table in front of him as he anticipated her next words.  
  
  
"Your behaviour in the field has been erratic. I see you are also jeapordising your wellbeing outside of combat."  
  
  
A steady, drawn out billow of smoke exiting through curled lips was his response. Not entirely directed into her face, but enough to cloud the exterior of her delicate reading glasses, cause the doctor to bristle in her seat as she defiantly left them on her face.  
  
  
"I've always been this way. If your _professional opinions_ never picked it up, that's not my problem."  
  
  
Whatever it was the young doctor had been expecting, it did not appear to be that. Her grip on the pen tightened, ever so slightly, the reaction gone in less time than the average person would have even noticed. He watched her intently, not looking away as his index finger snapped lower, forcing grey ash to fall with gravity to the floor.  
  
  
"Have you been engaging in other risky behaviours?"  
  
  
The hollow expulsion of air from his throat almost sounded like a laugh. "Is that not what I was brought here to do? I spend my whole goddamn life on this base, training to make sure I don't get wiped out _engaging in risky behaviour_ "  Reyes challenged, the cigarette returning to his lips, smoke refilling his lungs. "What do you expect me to say here, Ziegler?"  
  
  
The scratching continued, clip board held almost vertically, protecting her thoughts.  
  
  
"Have you engaged in promiscuous activity with operatives under your command?"  
  
  
Their eyes did not meet, but surely she had anticipated the way his would widen, his mouth twisted, curling downwards with increasing anger, confusion.  
  
  
There was silence.  
  
  
"You're serious?" Gabriel attempted to confirm, eyes narrowing somewhat as he pushed back into his chair, moving away a few inches from the table. The confident spread of his shoulders curving inwards, the beginnings of a hunch as he watched her.

  
" _No._ Never."  
  
  
A small "hm" left her lips, although he could not at all fathom why. He did not analyse it, agitation instead rising from within him. Anger that had no name. Only an angelic face, sharp blue eyes that rose to meet his in a sudden movement.  
  
  
"And your colleagues?"  
  
  
Silence.  
  
  
"Is that what all this is about?"  
  
  
"There were reports of your... _familiarity_ with your new pilot."  
  
  
Words met the back of his teeth, gritted and held shut in a sudden need for self-preservation. A fountain of phrases as to her obvious absurdity, dying a bitter death amongst tension and smoke.  
  
  
"Well, this is the first I've heard about that" he said sternly, the expended cigarette he held to his lips coming as a surprise before it reached them. His breathing had increased. He had not noticed.  
  
  
He twisted the last of the burning embers into the surface of the table in front of him, his eyes not leaving Angela's. An eyebrow raising somewhat cruelly when she did not shy away, his lips resembling a sneer before he willed them back into stern submission.  
  
  
"I never slept with her."  
  
  
"Or Ana?"

  
"Or _anyone_."  
  
  
The doctor did not flinch as his voice raised.  
  
  
"So you deny John?"  
  
  
Brown eyes blinked twice in succession. He leaned forward on the table between them, flexed movements through biceps and deltoids betraying the way his fists balled behind folded forearms.  
  
  
"The only person. Who I have been intimate with, in _any way_. Since joining this god forsaken organisation. Is the Head of Medical Science." The Commander tried to regulate his breathing, almost succeeding before the words continued. "Who I loved, with my whole heart."  
  
  
He saw the way she shrank back in her chair, away from him, no more than an inch. Her eyes finally left his again, beautiful and sad. The scratching continued.  
  
  
"Loved."  
  
  
Gabriel sighed, his eyes closing momentarily. Shaking his head, a small, hollow laugh filling the silence for a second.  
  
  
"I could say one hundred beautiful things to you, and you would only ever hear the one you didn't like."  
  
  
He reached forward for the crumpled cigarette packet, only seeing the blue orbs trained on him through his peripheral vision.  
  
  
"I will make the observations here, Gabriel."  
  
  
He met them again in passing, pressing a fresh cigarette between his lips, curling a dark hand in a barrier around it and raising his lighter.  
  
  
"I know about Moira."  
  
  
Click. She looked back up, slower.  
  
  
"What is it you think that you know?"  
  
  
"You really think someone on my team can fuck my wife and I won't find out about it?"  
  
  
He remembered the days her cheeks had flushed for reasons different entirely, confined now to his memories. The times her eyes had left his only when her shyness gave way to deeper feelings. The times they stayed with him regardless.  
  
  
His chair scraped across the floor a few inches, her eyes ever so slightly widening as he leaned closer, the only discernable difference to her steely exrerior.  
  
  
"But that's why you're doing it, isn't it? To get to me? Pry out some of those emotions you're so certain I lack."  
  
  
"Doctor O'Deorain is brilliant."  
  
  
"She's psychotic."  
  
  
After a pause, he laughed at his own words.  
  
  
"Right. Just your type."  
  
  
The Commander didn't wait for a response. Chair scraping against the floor once more as he pushed it backwards, showing no regard for curtosy or consideration.  
  
  
His cigarette burned closer towards his lips as he held it between his teeth, the radiant heat barely noticeable above the contempt he so desperately tried to suppress. "We're done here" he mumbled through it, zipping up his jacket and stuffing the paper packet back inside, moving to leave without waiting for permission.  
  
  
Her own chair squeaked once it was clear he intended to leave, her sensible shoes padding across the floor faster than the thud of his thick boots.  Making it to the door before he did, sans clipboard, placing her body between him and the exit.  
  
  
"You cannot always be in control, Gabriel."


End file.
